Mitt's passing health care mention

TAMPA, Fla. — Mitt Romney’s most significant political speech of the 2012 campaign made only a passing reference to two of the biggest issues in the entire election: Medicare and the future of President Barack Obama’s health care law.

In the whole speech, which lasted about 45 minutes, there were exactly two lines about health care. One was the same attack on Obama’s Medicare cuts that Paul Ryan made last night. The other was the standard pledge to repeal “Obamacare.”

On the night when he had the biggest national audience he’s had since the first days of the campaign, Romney didn’t talk about what he’d put in place of Obama’s health care law — even though it could have been a prime opportunity to win public support for the market-oriented, state-based reforms he says he wants.

And he didn’t say a word about the Medicare overhaul he and Ryan have proposed — even though he could have explained how the new system would work, building public support for his plan to provide subsidies to help seniors buy private health insurance or traditional Medicare coverage.

Romney may well talk more about both in the fall campaign. But if he tries to get Congress to pass either plan — especially the Medicare plan that’s sure to provoke a bitter fight with Democrats — his opponents could easily tell the public that Romney doesn’t have a mandate because he didn’t prepare the public for what he plans to do.

And Romney handled the sensitive subject of “Romneycare” — his Massachusetts health care law, widely recognized as a model for “Obamacare” — in the easiest way possible: He skipped it.

He did give a passing, non-specific reference to the need to help people with health care needs — speaking of a “united America [that] will care for the poor and the sick, will honor and respect the elderly, and will give a helping hand to those in need.”

Repeal of “Obamacare” has become one of Romney’s signature campaign promises and has played a significant role in his stump speeches. But it hasn’t played a starring role in the Republican National Convention this week.

Although there were some fiery speeches from “Obamacare’s” fiercest opponents — like Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — only a few of the dozens of other speakers who addressed the crowd over the last three days gave a lot of attention to the Democrats’ health reform law or Medicare.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 11:54 p.m. on August 30, 2012.